In Fight Over Science Education in Idaho, Lawmakers Move to Minimize Climate

When Idaho lawmakers scrubbed all mentions of human-caused climate change from the state’s education standards last year, they faced a swift backlash from teachers, parents and students who said that censoring science would leave students disadvantaged, jobs unfilled and the state unprepared for the future.

On Wednesday, the Idaho House Education Committee approved a revised set of standards that included some discussion of climate change. But the committee cut a section on the environmental impact of nonrenewable sources of energy and removed supporting content for standards that contained multiple references to human-driven warming.

The House committee’s decision is not final. The state’s Senate Education Committee will have a chance to weigh in, and the standards will need final approval from both chambers.

“The way I see it is, it disregards science and the scientists who are out there doing the work,” said Erin Stutzman, a science teacher at Timberline High School in Boise who has been following the battle between over the guidelines. Last week, a number of Ms. Stutzman’s students testified at a committee hearingand called for lawmakers to approve the revised standards in their entirety.

Click here to read the full story in The New York Times (Feb. 7, 2018)